1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus for forming an image corresponding to a font in accordance with font data, and more particularly to an image forming apparatus, which can form an image corresponding to a font in according with font data stored in the apparatus or font data stored in a storing apparatus to be mounted from an outer unit.
2. Description of the Related Art
A laser beam printer has been known as an image forming apparatus forming an image on a recording paper in accordance with image data supplied from an outer unit, for example, a host apparatus. In this apparatus, code data or image data is supplied to the laser beam printer from an outer host apparatus such as an electric filing apparatus, a word processor, a personal computer, and the like, a laser beam is modulated, scanned, and irradiated on an electric conductive member, that is, a photosensitive member, so that image data is developed after an electrostatic developing process, and image is transferred to a transferring material, for example, paper. That is, according to this type of image forming apparatus, image data supplied from the outer unit, that is, image data is expanded to bit map data, and the laser beam is modulated by bit map data. An electrostatic distribution pattern, that is, an electrostatic latent image, is formed on the photosensitive member where the modulated laser beam is scanned. Developer such as toner is supplied to the electrostatic latent image by a developing device, so that the electrostatic latent image is developed. The developed image is transferred to the transferring material, e.g., paper, which is fed from a paper feeding device, and the above toner is fixed by a fixing device, and is discharged.
According to the above type of the image forming apparatus, standard font data, e.g., curie or bold character data is stored in to a ROM (Read Only Memory) serving as a storing apparatus in the image forming apparatus, and code data serving as image data sent from the outer host apparatus is referred by font data and expanded to bit map data by a CPU (Central Processing Unit) provided in the image forming apparatus. In a case that font data is supplied to not only ROM but also the outer unit together with image data, data is also stored to a RAM (Random Access Memory) and can be referred. However, there is a problem of memory capacity, and it is not preferable that font data is stored in the RAM.
Recently, there has been prepared an outer storing apparatus having font data of an IC card or a font cartridge. The storing apparatus is mounted on the image forming apparatus as required and font data serving as the stored content is referred as required. If the outer storing apparatus is mounted on the image forming apparatus, a font name of font data stored in the storing apparatus and that of font data stored in the outer storing apparatus are normally displayed in a font menu of a control panel. An operator operates the control panel and selects a necessary font name, thereby image data is expanded to bit map data in accordance with the selected font data and an image is formed.
According to the conventional image forming apparatus, if the outer storing apparatus is mounted on the image forming apparatus, the font name of font data as the stored content is displayed in the menu. However, this only increases the number of selections in the menu, and there is a problem in that it is unclear which font name corresponds to the outer storing apparatus. Normally, a list of the font names of font data stored in the inner storing apparatus is displayed in the font menu of the control panel, and the font name of font data of the outer storing apparatus is displayed in addition to the font name of font data of the inner storing apparatus. Therefore, in view of the relation of the size of the display area, there is a problem in that the font name of font data stored in the outer storing apparatus is unclear unless the font name is retrieved. Or, there is a problem in that it is unclear whether or not the outer storing apparatus itself is mounted and the font name is displayed.